


Mutual Service

by phaetonschariot



Series: Mutual Service [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phaetonschariot/pseuds/phaetonschariot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When some misplaced technology triggers a custom-coded lockdown, Torchwood quickly realises the quickest way to open up the Hub again is to get the program's creator to shut it off. The only problem is that Ianto Jones is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutual Service

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the suicide note of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or 'broken heart,' is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one." Cheerful, I know.

For once it is a slow week for the four members of Torchwood Three. Toshiko is taking advantage of the time to work on one of her endless projects - there are always more ways their arsenal of tools can be improved, and this one is hoped to add detail to the information gleaned from the Rift Predictor. Owen, not nearly so studious, is tossing a tennis ball into the air and catching it neatly again while Gwen watches, tapping her fingers idly against the edge of her desk.

No one is quite sure what Jack is doing, only that he's around somewhere.

"I could go for a coffee if you've nothing else to do, love," Owen comments, a soft thunk as the ball lands back in the curve of his palm.

Gwen snorts; she's only been with Torchwood a couple of months and already she's getting over the anxious new-job feel that makes her want to leap to everyone's bidding, keep them on side. Even with her mistake on the first day of work, she's settling in well. "You're not exactly busy, are you?"

"Bloody machine hates me," he retorts, aware that it sounds ridiculous. It's not like the coffee machine is aware, not like some of their other tech almost seems to be sometimes. Just a plain old normal coffee machine. But somehow he can never quite get it _right_ , and as an alternative, Starbucks is bloody expensive. "Jack needs to hire another secretary."

"Talking about me?"

The new voice comes from the side of the Hub that leads down to the Archives, where Owen never goes. Tosh might, sometimes, but Gwen got completely mixed up the second time she tried, and mostly if they need anything Jack's the one who has to dig it out, usually emerging dusty and rumpled and muttering about the mess that no one ever does anything about. Owen's been here for a year and a half and it's been like this the whole time.

"Owen's just bitching again," Gwen says brightly, and he sneers at her, putting the tennis ball back on his desk and sitting up a bit. "What's that?"

She's referring to the containment boxes Jack has lugged up, awkwardly balanced on one hip as he attempts to make space on a desk for them; like a good girl she gets up to help him, shoving things aside haphazardly to pile on the edge, though at least nothing falls.

"Not sure. They were never logged in, just left in a corner in the basement. New, though, I've never seen them before. Tosh, think you can get me an analysis before I open them up? Make sure they're not dangerous?"

"Of course."

"Great. Now, who's making coffee?"

*

"It's steel." Tosh's announcement is firm and sure as though there can be no mistake, and it's times like these that Jack appreciates just how far she's come since he got her out of UNIT's hands. The two boxes still sit exactly where he left them and she speaks over the top of them, PDA in hand as she boils the complicated readings into the simplest terms. "As far as I can tell, they're electrical components, but they've been broken down into pieces and packed separately. There are probably quite a few more of them."

"Not dangerous, then?" Jack asks. His left hand runs idly across the top of one of the boxes as Tosh shakes her head.

"Maybe if you put them all back together. But alone? No moreso than a gun cartridge is before you load it."

"Makes a nice dent when you throw it." He grins at the analogy, studying the boxes. Honestly there's a lot of unidentified stuff in the Archives - cardboard boxes of rift junk labeled "to be archived - eventually", broken technology stacked on top of files, things no one's ever bothered with, but they all at least had been logged in, even if the paperwork is blank of anything useful. These, sitting next to the wall of an empty room, had caught his interest and suspicion. He can feel Owen hovering behind him as he carefully releases the seal on the bigger of the two boxes, but he's not sure whether the doctor is waiting to be on hand if someone gets hurt or - more likely - is just curious about the contents.

When nothing changes, Jack lifts the lid free from the box-- and immediately the alarms let out a warning shriek, just as machinery starts up to close all the big doors - the exit, the Archives, the armory, the vaults. But instead of the red lighting of a lock down, there is a _thunk thunk thunk_ as heavy duty lights turn on, brightening the space of the Hub so that visibility everywhere is heightened.

"What the fuck?" Owen breathes.

Tosh and Gwen both turn to monitors, assessing the situation as Jack presses buttons on his wrist strap... and fails to affect anything but the alarm, which silences, leaving an echo ringing in their ears. "It's some kind of lockdown, but I can't access any controls." Tosh speaks and types at the same time, keys clacking rapidly with the motion of her fingers. "This isn't anything I've seen before, Jack. It's not acknowledging my commands."

"Power's down in all lower levels except what's required to keep major systems and security running," Gwen adds. "At least we don't have to worry about weevils."

"Yeah, yeah, great news princess, but how do we get out?"

"I'm trying to locate the original program." Tosh ignores Owen easily, still focused on her computer even as Gwen gives up and turns to look at the object inside the box. "Maybe if I can figure out where it came from it will give us a clue..." Windows fly past on her monitor, opening and closing with a speed that makes it hard to believe any human could process their usefulness with any accuracy. "Here! But this is... new. It was only compiled in mid-June."

It's only when Gwen speaks that Jack notices she's been turning the component over in her hands. Sometimes he wonders about the self-preservation skills about his staff; it's a dangerous enough job to start with. "It looks like this was specifically tagged to trigger the lockdown," she says before he can comment, finger tapping a small blue device attached to the thing, small LED light flashing. "It must have been inactive while it was contained."

"It'd suit the timeline," he agrees, pulling it from her hands and replacing it in the box. He puts the lid back on, pausing for a reaction from the Hub, and then seals it. Nothing. "Dammit. Tosh?"

"Jack, you're not going to believe this." She turns back towards them, finally, and the expression on her face is serious and just a touch confused. The bright lights cast the contours in sharp contrasts of light and shadow. "I found out who installed it. I think-- I think it was _Ianto_."

" _What?_ "

He speaks at the same time as Owen's triumphant, "I told you!" and Gwen follows a moment later.

"What? Who's Ianto?"

"He was our archivist for three weeks," Jack tells her grimly. "He worked at Torchwood One until Canary Wharf, begged me for a job, then hanged himself in the basement. Tosh, there was never any indication he had the skills for something like this. I can't override the program and I'm supposed to have master system control."

"But why would he do that?"

"Because he was a nutter," Owen declares, using the tone of someone who's been proved right, and Jack glares at him. Whatever he thinks of London's Torchwood, he never liked the way Owen seemed to revel in dissecting Jones' actions.

"Torchwood One fell two and a half months ago." The Hub is open enough that he can talk as he makes his way over to Tosh's station, tossing the words back over his shoulder for Gwen. "Since then, seven other survivors have committed suicide. Last I heard there were nineteen left. It's the only reason we weren't investigated too thoroughly after Suzie. Under normal circumstances, two employees off themselves in a week? People think something suspicious is going on." There's a hint of lightness in his tone, but he doesn't feel the amusement. The remnants of Torchwood management may not have blamed him for the two deaths, but that didn't mean he didn't hold himself in some way responsible. Jones was a closed book, but he knew he'd been through hell. He should have done... _something_. Seen something, in him _and_ Suzie.

Tosh offers him a small smile when he reaches her and he receives it gratefully. After they'd found out what Ianto had done she'd expressed the same feelings - sweet, caring Tosh. "It was hiding, like it was woven into the spaces between files. And it's encrypted, layers of it. I don't know what those components make when they're put together, but it looks like he really didn't want them out in the Hub. There's not even an automatic shut-off timer. This might take _days_ to unravel."

Even with the Rift quiet Jack doesn't like the sound of that. Something could come up at any moment, not to mention the weevils that are already in the sewers, and if they're being kept out of the lower levels he's not even sure how much food they have available. Though there's always the morgue, he thinks, resisting the urge to voice the black humour. No need to make the situation worse. "And it's not like we can exactly ask him," he says instead. "You'd better get started, I'll see what I can do from my office."

He's turned and started crossing the metal walkways to the stairs, covering the distance with long strides, when Gwen speaks up. "What about the glove?"

Owen is faster to the line than Jack. "No way." 

"But I saw you-- you can bring people back! You could ask him how to turn it off."

"Suzie was our friend," Owen snaps, turning on her. "You didn't see what that thing did to her. She wasn't like that before."

"It would only be one time, though, then we can lock it back up again. We don't know how long it will take Tosh to break the program! We could be stuck here!"

Really, Jack doesn't think that impugning Tosh's technical ability is the best way to make a point, but it's a dim notion over the heavy feeling settling in his stomach as he watches his two team members argue. He doesn't want to admit it, _god_ he doesn't want to admit it, but Gwen's right. They can't afford to be trapped in the Hub if an emergency arises. 

"Doesn't matter anyway." Owen folds his arms tightly, expression mulish and defiant. "The Archives are locked, we can't get it."

"Actually," says Jack.

*

Jack lifts the locked container that the glove resides in out of the safe in his office carefully, as though any sharp movement could cause the metal to shatter against the sturdy walls. The other three are silent; even Tosh has come to stand in the doorway, watching nervously as they're faced with the artifact that probably drove one of their own to her death. "No one uses this but me," Jack tells them, and no one argues. "If I can't do it, it goes right back in the safe." It's mostly for Gwen's benefit, actually. Suzie had been the only one who'd really got the thing going. Jack will be relying on sheer bloody determination to succeed, and Tosh and Owen wouldn't have any luck at all, he suspects. Gwen, though, has never tried it, and she's the sort of person who's likely to want to, because she probably still thinks it can be used for good.

Jack is a lot more cynical than Gwen is.

They all follow him to the autopsy room, where Owen has brought Ianto's body. In death he's pale, but his face isn't swollen or miscoloured - Owen had declared COD as occlusion of the carotid arteries causing cerebral ischemia. A relatively quick death.

"You know, we never gave it a cool name," the doctor muses as Jack flips open the seals on the glove's box. 

Tosh glances across at him. "I thought we called it the Resurrection Gauntlet?"

" _Cool_ name!"

Jack wags his finger scoldingly at them before taking a breath and slipping the glove on. It's cold, but he remembers from experience that that won't last too long. "Remember, the maximum resurrection time is two minutes, and that's only coz Suzie had practice. The most we're likely to get is.. thirty seconds, okay?" He meets each of their gazes, and without him having to say anything Tosh heads to the recording station, Owen to the monitors. His stopwatch he tosses to Gwen. "Everyone ready?"

"Ready... and recording."

The glove fits easily around the top of Ianto's head and he feels a tug, something that's almost-cold and almost-dark in his belly. Forcing himself to ignore the discomfit, the feeling of death and wrongness, he tries to remember the feeling of Ianto, searching for something familiar in the darkness.

"How does it work?" Gwen asks.

"You sort of feel like... reaching into the dark." It's hard to explain and do at the same time and he keeps his eyes closed, calling silently for Jones. "Finding the dead." It's hard, almost physically painful; he almost feels like something undefinable, unnameable, is taking advantage of the connection to pull _him_ in. "I can't-- _Dammit_!"

The beeps that had been punctuating his speech speed up and blend into one continuous sound on Owen's monitor, in time with something that's probably a brain function monitor. "It's gone." 

Jack swears again, pulling the glove off too quickly and too rough, the metal scraping his skin. It doesn't matter; it will heal.

"What now?"

He doesn't look up at Tosh, leaning on the gurney that holds Ianto's body. God, he'd been so young. "Nothing. Nothing we can do. That's it. We're out of options."

"There's always the knife," Owen offers, and for a moment Jack doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. "When Suzie killed all those people, she always used the knife. It's made out of the same metal as the glove."

"We've seen it before," Tosh agrees. "Metallic resonance. Like the glove works better if the knife's part of the process, like closing a circuit."

It sounds like it should make sense, and Jack closes his eyes, opens them again. Stares at Ianto Jones, dead before his time in a secret base under Cardiff. His skin is unbroken, and the idea of breaking it makes Jack nauseous, but... "Alright," he says. "Let's do it."

*

By the time they assemble again the hyper-bright lights reflecting off the white walls of the autopsy bay are starting to give him a headache. He fights it down, not willing to let anything distract him for this. Gwen holds the knife, and he looks across at her before moving the glove into position; for a moment it's the same as before, the aching maw of the almost-cold almost-dark, and then she drives the blade straight into Ianto's chest.

There's a gasp and suddenly Ianto is moving below him, sucking in air to lungs that haven't felt it in weeks and opening his eyes, thrashing about in panic. "Ianto! Calm down, I've got you." The words should have been reassuring but instead it comes out as a command. 

Luckily Ianto always responded well to commands. He stills, but doesn't go silent, instead moaning, "No..."

If he'd had time to think, it might have tugged at Jack's heart. "Ianto, listen. I need you to focus. You installed a lockdown program, we _need to know_ how to break it." There's no time to demand to know what he was thinking, either, or how he came up with the thing. Too many questions that he'll probably never have answers to. 

Ianto stares at him for a moment, then his eyes flick around the room quickly, taking it in. "Oh god," he says in that same low moan. It sounds as though he's in pain, despairing. "You brought me back, oh my god."

"Ianto!"

"Where's Suzie?"

"Fifteen seconds," Gwen interrupts, and Jack grimaces.

"The lockdown, Ianto, _how do we break it_?"

"I don't-- It shouldn't, I took it off, she's gone, there's nothing left, just a few parts." He's babbling and Jack doesn't understand any of it, except for the reference to parts - that must be the boxes he'd found in the basement. Not the same room they'd found Ianto in, though. He must have stashed them first, figured no one else would find them - after all, he'd been the only one who even cared to bother with the archives and all those rooms.

"Focus," he orders; he can feel the connection slipping and tries desperately to hang on, just a little longer. "Focus, Ianto, the _lockdown_."

Finally Ianto's eyes seem to sharpen in concentration. "Fifty-one thirty eighteen zero one sixteen!"

The words are barely out when two things happen: machinery clanks in the main Hub above them as the lockdown ends, and Jack is thrown back against a trolley of medical equipment as the connection keeping Ianto present shatters.

Tosh's footsteps clatter down the stairs even as Gwen bends down to wrap her arms around him, pulling him to his feet, and as soon as he's standing under his own power he steps away from her almost forcefully. He wants to rip the glove off again, furious at himself, and barely resists - he was forcing the connection, he knows he was, and even if he can't die the glove is still dangerous. At least it's over now, he thinks, they can put the damn thing back and never speak of it again.

"Uh, hang on a minute." Owen breaks his train of thought swiftly, efficiently. "We're still going here."

"He's dead," Jack tells him angrily, shoving the glove back in its box.

"Nope, just unconscious. Look at him, he's bloody breathing!"

They stand in a loose circle, the four of them, staring at the figure on the gurney. Ianto's chest is rising and falling, just as Owen had said, the knife quivering in place, and after a moment Tosh reaches over to pull it out. In any other circumstances it would be funny how they all turn to the monitor at the same time, but nothing has changed. Brain function, heart beat, all steady.

Well, fuck.

*

Ianto has only been in the interrogation rooms a handful of times. Mostly to clean, of course, because that was what he did. Today he is sitting in a wheelchair, the far side of the room from the door - the prisoner's side - and as he looks around at the walls, he realises it must have been a while since he died.

That is not a thought he'd ever been expecting to have. 

Across from him, Jack and a woman he doesn't know are sitting, watching him, and he can't quite meet their eyes. He feels like a lab specimen, like he should be sitting in a glass cage with people leaning over him. This was not supposed to happen. His neck aches and there's a hole in his chest, he has a _wicked_ headache, and most of all he's alive, despite the considerable work he put into leaving the state behind him.

God, he can't even _die_ right.

He closes his eyes, tilts his head down. It feels harder than it should be to hold it up, like he can choose between straight up or flopped down with his chin on his chest, but he's damned if he's going to fall into that indignity. Vaguely, he wonders who found his body. "Why am I still here?"

"You're stuck," Jack says. As explanations go, it's not very comforting. "Ianto..."

This is probably the first time, Ianto thinks, that Jack Harkness has sounded unsure. "Who's she?" he asks.

"Gwen Cooper," the woman says, Welsh accent so different from Jack's booming American. "I replaced Suzie, after she.. died."

That would explain why she hadn't been using the glove. Ianto opens his eyes, frown tugging at his lips. "How long-- how long has it been?"

"Nearly two months. It's August twenty seventh." They fall silent once more as Jack studies him, and Ianto's skin itches under the scrutiny. He hadn't thought he would miss being invisible. During the three weeks he'd worked at Torchwood Three he'd served silently only because he had to, for Lisa. But he hadn't been able to save her. "Gwen, you want to go get us some coffee?"

"Sure." She offers them a wavery sort of smile and slips out of the room, leaving them alone.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Ianto asks, and he can't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. "For not stopping me, or for bringing me back?"

He's almost glad to see Jack's wince as the question hits home, and it turns into a hollow sounding laugh. "Both. I should've paid more attention."

It's probably true, though he doesn't say so. He'd been trying to hide, but if he hadn't been, if it wasn't for Lisa, he doesn't entirely think the appropriate treatment for trauma is to comment on his arse and leave him to pick up greasy pizza boxes. But then, what does he know? He's just the teaboy. "What happens if I never die? What are you going to do with me?"

"Don't know. You're legally dead, you know. Could make it difficult if you wanted to leave."

Leave? Ianto shoots him a skeptical look; Torchwood Cardiff is not the sort of place you just walk out of, and he distinctly remembers Jack threatening to wipe his memory once. Granted, before he offered him a pterodactyl and some cheap frottage on a warehouse floor, but considering he'd found reports on the periodic retconning of delivery people who'd seen too much, he's fairly certain his wariness is founded.

"Or you could take your old job back," Jack continues when he realises Ianto's not going to respond. "Never did find a proper replacement, after all."

Jack had also told him there was no vacancy, which would seem to imply no need for a replacement, but then Ianto had figured out that that was bullshit as soon as he'd seen the mess they tended to leave the Hub in. "What about Gwen?"

"Field agent. She got lost last time she was in the Archives, and her coffee's nothing on yours."

"Nothing wrong with my coffee!" Gwen has chosen this moment to return, carefully balancing a tray with three mugs on it - and a plate of cookies, Ianto sees when she lowers it to the table. That's a point. If he's dead, does he have to eat?

Still, he takes the coffee when she offers it to him, taking a sip-- and it seems Jack's right. He raises an eyebrow at the taste, setting it down in front of him, and Jack pulls out that conspiratorial smirk, the one that he suspects is supposed to make him feel as though they're sharing a secret. He doesn't, particularly. He's seen Jack use his charm on too many people, or else he's just too bitter about being alive to fall for it. 

"The thing is," Jack continues, "that lockdown program--"

"Wasn't meant to be there. I wiped my files." He remembers that; he's _sure_ he remembers that, and his memory really doesn't seem to be faulty. Unless he's completely delusional, of course, and he accepts the possibility of that with detachment. It would be rather like him to build a delusion that complicated, detailed enough to pass inspection. He never can do anything the easy way. 

"It wasn't in your files. It was woven into the system. Amazing. You wrote it?"

"I modified it." The admission is wary, because he can feel them stepping onto shaky ground. Jack's going to want to know why, soon, and what's he going to say? He can't explain about Lisa. He just can't. It's not an issue anymore. 

"You've been selling yourself short, Ianto Jones. Which is funny, because you tried so hard to get this job, and you never mentioned programming skills."

He hadn't mentioned a _lot_ of things. "You have Toshiko."

Jack gives him a measured look, and this time he stares back, because he's not afraid of Jack Harkness. There is nothing this man can do to him that's worse than what he's already been through. He's starting to realise that, now.

He's saved from further discussion of the program by the intercom beeping, interrupting their staring contest. Owen's voice fills the room. "Jack? Can you come to the conference room for a sec? Something I need you to see, kind of urgent."

"Be right there," Jack replies, and looks back at Ianto. "We'll talk later."

Looking forward to it, Ianto thinks.

*

All the ways Jack's died before, it'd be a surprise if he hadn't done hanging. And he has. Oh, how he has. He hasn't done it stretched out over most of a day, though, and he definitely hasn't done it while arguing with his medical officer over the necessity. "I _can't die_ ," he reminds Owen for what feels like the fifteenth time.

"But Teaboy wants to! We might as well bloody let him!"

And part of Jack wants to agree with him, because he knows what it's like to want it all over. Hell, he's tried it, countless times, but no matter what he does, he always comes back. It's not something he would have wished on anyone else.

But he doesn't want to let Ianto go without a fight, because maybe he didn't do right by him the first time, but he can change that. They're connected now and he's all too willing to take Ianto's pain if that's what it will take to keep him. They can work through the rest after that, make him a bigger part of the team, talk about real things. 

Jack refuses to lose one of his team again.

But he doesn't go to tell Ianto what he's doing. Just in case.

*

Jack comes gasping back to life in the same way bloody Jones had, lying on his camp bed with Owen glaring down at him. "You're a bloody idiot, you know that?"

"Did it work?" Jack asks.

"He was still alive when I checked a minute ago. I was waiting for you to wake up to check the footage again." He doesn't wait for Jack, climbing back up the ladder - who has a _ladder_ to their bedroom? - to get back to the medical bay. He knows Jack'll follow, anyway, he's going to want to know his toy boy's alright.

He brings up the feed to the kitchenette first, where Tosh is talking to him as he works on making them all the first proper cup of coffee they've had in two months, and yeah alright that was one advantage of having him round, Owen'll admit. Even if he does look ridiculous in a pair of scrub bottoms and a shirt he'd pilfered from Jack. "See, still kicking, not a mark on him." Tapping a few more buttons, he runs the footage through the same filter as earlier. The energy flow is still there, stretching off the screen in the direction of the medical bay, but... not as strong as it was before, and it's moving slower, sort of pulsing into Jones instead of rushing. 

"He's still connected. Me dying, it didn't cut the connection." Jack frowns at the display, and Owen can follow his train of thought pretty well - does that mean Jack's always going to take his injuries? Is he going to keep coming back, every time he dies? Like Jack?

God, there's a price for bloody everything. At least Starbucks' extortion racket is limited to British currency.

"Right, Owen, this stays between us. Got it? You _don't tell him_."

"Oh yeah, great idea, so next time we leave him alone he tries to off himself again and you're out of action for another day. Fuck that, Jack."

"I'll talk to him," Jack says sharply. "You, don't say a word. That's an order." He stalks off without waiting for an answer and Owen mutters a few choice swear words to himself, shutting down the programs on his computer rather more forcefully than necessary. Bloody Jack Harkness.

*

It's late, but Jack still has to shoo Tosh out; Gwen has long gone home to her boyfriend, and Owen gladly left once he'd assured himself that Jack was back on his feet. Ianto still moving around late at night had been a common sight back in June, and for a while after the week when he and Suzie had died the silence after the others had gone home had echoed hollowly. Seeing him sitting on the ratty old couch, elbows on knees, brings a smile to Jack's face as he heads over to sit down next to him. "So, feel like sticking around?"

"I don't seem to have much choice in the matter." He doesn't sound quite as bitter as he had that morning, or perhaps that's wishful thinking. "Since I don't seem to be dropping dead any time soon."

"Yeah, about that." He pauses, trying to figure out how to phrase this as Ianto gazes at him expectantly. If he had his way he wouldn't have to explain, but Owen's right. Ianto needs to know the consequences if he gets any injuries. "Owen thinks he's figured out what happened. The glove and knife formed a sort of circuit that... connected us."

"Connected," Ianto repeats dubiously.

"You kind of drained energy out of me to come back. All the injuries you had, that faded, I got them, all of them. See, I can't die. Something happened to me, and ever since then, every time I die I come back. Which means the connection's never going to break. If you get hurt again, it will happen to me, and you'll heal."

Above them, Myfanwy makes a noise in her nest that floats down to them in the quiet. Ianto's face is tilted away from him, showing him clearly deep in thought. He doesn't question Jack's explanation, or debate the possibility of resurrection. Probably seems a little pointless, the position he's in. "Unless," he says after a moment, "the glove is destroyed. Or the knife."

Jack hadn't thought of that. It makes sense, really, if they're part of a circuit. Ianto's death can't break it because Jack will take the injuries, and Jack's death can't break it because he comes back, but the glove is just an object. "Do you want to destroy the glove?" he asks, because it feels like he should. He doesn't have a choice about living. It'd be hypocritical not to let Ianto, even if isn't quite sure he can accept the answer if it's yes.

"I don't know," Ianto says, which isn't a no, but it isn't a yes either.

Jack decides he'll take it. "I'll make it better this time," he promises, a note of earnestness creeping into his voice. "I want to get to know you, Ianto Jones. You're not someone who could be easily replaced."

"You just don't like Gwen's coffee." The accusation is pronounced solemnly enough, but a moment later a small smile tugs at the corner of Ianto's mouth, and Jack sort of wants to kiss it. Instead he just grins back, teeth flashing and dimples out in full force.

"Oh," he says, leaning sideways to nudge his shoulder against the Welshman's, "not just that. Your ass is nicer, too."

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, 51'30'18N 00'01'16E is the location of Canary Wharf in latitude and longitude.


End file.
